Allina Health, Nurses At Standstill Over Health Insurance

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — It’s been seven days since thousands of Twins Cities nurses walked off the job and went on strike.

About 4,800 nurses went on strike on Labor Day at Abbott Northwestern, The Phillips Eye Institute, Unity, United and Mercy Hospitals. They have been unable to reach a new three-year contract with Allina Health.

The main issue has been health insurance. Allina wants to switch the nurses to plans that cover other employees. The union pushed back, saying the deductibles are too high.

Allina Health released a statement today saying in part, “Allina Health’s permanent employees and temporary nurses have come together to deliver the high-quality care that Allina Health is known for in each of our hospitals.”

It’s asking the union to return to the bargaining table so they can come to an agreement. Striking nurses say they are hearing complaints about inadequate care from inexperienced replacements.

Actually, if you ask anyone who’s currently working along side the replacements, care has taken a dive. I have heard complaints from other staff and several patients. Allina did little to bring the Scabs up to par with our practices. This isn’t the fault of the scabs, but it mixes the shortcut taking deficient care of many of the southern states w/ our strive to be the better standard here in the midwest. I haven’t met anyone who has been close to content with the care of the scabs.

The plans are not unrealistic. The idea that the nurses should get the same healthcare as other departments is laughable. When you go into nursing school, you know coming out that good insurance is one of the perks of this highly under appreciated field. The nurses are and always will be the frontline to anyones care. That being said, it is important that we provide them the best opportunities to protect their own health.

Allina spends money carelessly on a regular basis. This is constantly left out of any articles posted. A quick google search of Allina’s shady ways returns numerous concerning articles. They’ve already done plenty to lose several of their best doctors, with many of them leaving to start their own practices.

The nurses are the reason that this company held the high level of respect around the surrounding communities. Allina health has turned their sights to straight profit and focus far more on cutting costs than improving the healthcare of our patients.

Allina employee
What makes you 5,000 nurses more important than the other 30,000 employees of Allina.
You say the idea of the nurses getting the same healthcare as the other 30,000 employees
is laughable. Who the h– do you think are. If you don’t like it QUIT and go home cry in your soup.
Why don’t you cry to your union who backed Obama and the Democrats who crammed Obama care down our throats

So we should give the same insurance to all employees regardless of if you have a college education? No. Don’t pretend our jobs are remotely close to the same level of demanding.
For the record, I’m not a nurse. I just happen to have common sense and see Allina’s faults. Stop cupping their balls, you have no idea who you’re coddling.

so if they follow what you are saying, doctors or anyone else with more education than the nurses should get better health care and costs than the nurses.
Also you say you are not a nurse but you use the word we and our in your statement, If you are not a nurse why would you uses those words.
I am not coddling Alina, I am pretty sure all business’s offer the same healthcare to all employee’s

I’m going to attribute your inability to reply in the same comment thread as a product of your age, but let’s move on. The doctors should indeed get better healthcare, but that’s not what the issue is at hand, is it? Your blind hostility towards nurses shows you are just a hapless puppet that happens to believe everything Allina whispers in the ears of the media. Is the union perfect? No. Is it needed when you have a corporation that has misused it’s status as “non-profit”? Yes. It’s odd that you take a socialist opinion on the matter when you’re ignorant comments about democrats show that you’ll be casting your vote for the republicans in the next election.

Well champ, I gotta go, so your reply will merely be to an empty room.